HOSPITAL SHIP BRITANNIC SUNK; 50 LIVES LOST --- Giant White Star Liner Torpedoed Off Island of Kea, in Aegean Sea --- 1,106 SURVIVORS LANDED --- Two Submarines at Once Attack the Ship and Islanders Hurry to the Rescue. --- GOES DOWN IN 55 MINUTES --- Vessel Was the Titanic's Successor and the Largest British Passenger Ship Afloat --- Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES --- LONDON, Thursday, Nov. 23---The hospital ship Britannic has been sunk by a German submarine in the Aegean Sea. The story of the submarine attack is told by The Daily Chronicle's Athens correspondent in the following dispatch dated Tuesday:

"The British hospital ship Britannic has been torpedoed by a German submarine. The latest enemy outrage against humanity occurred at 10 o'clock this morning.

"All my inquiries lead to the belief that two German submarines were lying in wait in the narrow seas by the island of Kea with the express object of sending the Britannic to the bottom. She was attacked from both sides at once, each of the submarines launching a torpedo against her. One of them missed its mark, but the other inflicted a fatal blow on the ship.

Carried No Wounded

"This deliberate crime was all the worse because the submarine commanders must have known the vessel was going north. This fact would tell them she contained only the usual crew and complement of nurses, doctors, and R. A. M. C. men, about 1,200 in all. But that did not count with the foe. The Britannic was going to Mudros, the port of Lemnos, in the centre of the Aegean Sea to take aboard sick and wounded for whom she is fitted to carry 3,000.

"One of the survivors tells me the order aboard when she was struck was perfect in every way. Thirty to forty of the crew were wounded by the explosion. Nurses, in common with the officers and men of the R. A. M. C., lined up on deck and there was not the slightest panic.

"It was impossible to launch all boats, although many got away. Several survivors dropped into the sea with life belts on. The women, of course, were saved first. They all behaved quite coolly.

"Wireless messages were sent in all directions for help. A number of allied vessels, destroyers and sweepers, quickly arrived on the scene. Among the rescue ships was one from the Piraeus. Happily the great majority of the ship's company has been saved. The toll of human life is reported to be about fifty-three and many injured. One of the stewardesses was aboard the Titanic when that other huge liner went to her doom. She told me a terrible story of the launching of the first of the Britannic's boats near the stern and of the ship healing over with her screw out of the water whirring around in the air.

"Two loaded boats were sucked toward the sinking vessel, smashing like matchwood. Many were killed outright and others received terrible wounds. Said the stewardess:

"'It really was worse than the Titanic.'

"Many survivors were landed at Phaleron, a well known Summer resort, four miles from Athens, from which Venezelos set out on his famous expedition a short time ago. Others were put ashore at the Piraeus, an object lesson in German ruthlessness for Athenians. Still more were brought aboard Allied ships to Kerathine, in the Gulf of Salamis."

Survivors to Join Another Ship

A later dispatch from the same correspondent, dated Wednesday, says:

"Sir Francis Elliott, British Minister at Athens, visited the wounded, who have been taken to a Russian hospital. He also went to see some of the survivors at Phaleron. After a day's leave to go to Athens to buy necessary clothes, &c., those who are none the worse for their grim adventure are to join another ship almost immediately."

"Two of the expelled Ministers had a strange encounter this morning with some of the nurses who so narrowly escaped death in the Britannic. After breakfast at the Actaeon Hotel at Phaleron, the nurses were all looking out to sea from the terrace when the banished ministers passed, their baggage in Greek army camions, on the way to Piraeus to make their exit from country."

"The nurses watched them with keen interest and the Teuton representatives could not help seeing the party of would-be victims of the latest reminder of German barbarity." ---------- Reports Fifty Lives Lost --- LONDON, Thursday, Nov. 23---Fifty lives have been lost by the sinking of the Britannic, according to an official statement issued here.

The accounts from various sources of the sea tragedy differ as to the number on board the Britannic. One dispatch says there were 1,000 British sick and wounded on the ship, and the official statement given out here, reports 1,106 survivors landed, including 28 who were injured. Another dispatch states, on the contrary, that there were no wounded on the Britannic, which, however, carried 121 nurses and 390 officers and men of the army medical corps.

The Daily News's Athens correspondent sends the following:

"The Britannic was torpedoed at 8 o'clock in the morning and sank near shore fifty-five minutes later. She was going to Saloniki, but had no wounded on board.

"Her complement included 121 nurses and 390 officers and men of the. Army Medical Corps. Twenty-five of the injured from the steamer are now in the Russian hospital, while others are aboard allied warships.

"The islanders of Kea saw the vessel sinking and the victims struggling in the waves and promptly responded to the appeals for help, and an Anglo-French squadron from Piraeus, comprised of destroyers and auxiliaries, immediately went to the rescue.

"The injuries of some of those on board are very severe, especially the occupants of two boats which were caught by the propellors of the steamer. The women of Kea tore up their clothing to bandage the injured.

"The Britannic had 3,000 beds, which had been prepared for the reception of sick and wounded an hour prior to the torpedoing

An early account of the sinking, cabled from Athens, read:

"The White Star Line steamship Britannic, serving as a hospital ship for wounded soldiers of the Entente Allies, has been torpedoed and sunk, according to an official announcement made here today.

"The Britannic was sunk off the lsland of Kea. She carried 1,000 British sick and wounded men.

"The Britannic was equipped with thirty-five lifeboats, and the loss of life incident to the sinking was supposed to have been small."

Twenty-eight Survivors Injured

The British official statement says the vessel was "sunk by a mine or torpedoed," and there were 1,106 survivors, of whom about twenty-eight were injured.

Admiralty officials have little to add to the official announcement except to state that the Britannic was sunk in the daytime. The Admiralty is advised that many submarines were operating in the vicinity. At the time of the sinking at least 200 severely wounded men were on board the ship.

The medical staffs and the members of the crew numbered more than 500.

The smallness of the loss of life on board the Britannic is believed here to have been due to the steamer's magnificent life-saving equipment. She had a double bottom over five feet deep, divided into a large number of compartments, and this system extended well above her water line.

The ship carried the largest sized lifeboats ever fitted to an ocean liner, two of them being equipped with powerful engines. They were arranged in groups, leaving a large space for the marshaling of passengers in case of disaster. The davits were built on a new principle, so that the boats could be launched electrically on an even keel even if the ship were badly listing. It was also possible to launch all the boats from one side, if necessary.

The ship had sixteen transverse bulkheads, and six of the main compartments could be flooded without affecting the stability of the ship.

The Britannic was nearing completion at the outbreak of the war, when she was requisitioned by the Government and converted into a hospital ship. In company with the Mauretania and the Olympic, she was engaged in bringing thousands of wounded men from the Gallipoli Peninsula soon after the evacuation of the peninsula by the Allies.

Reported U-Boat Sowing Mines

A dispatch to The Daily Mail from Athens says:

"Admiral du Fournet, commander of the Franco-British fleet in the Mediterranean announced Tuesday that two German mines had been found adrift off Flava, southwest of Pireaus. He warned navigators that a submarine apparently was sowing mines broadcast.

"Those who calculate the seriousness of these crimes by their actual results alone may think less of such a case than of the Lusitania, but if wickedness is to be measured as it is reasonably to be expected, the results of this crime must exceed even that ghastly massacre and take rank at the very top of German achievements in infamy. Those of our friends in America who have been suggesting that Germany has learned her lesson and changed her bad heart for a better one will forgive us if in view of such sustained and reiterated atracities [sic] we remain of a different opinion." ---------- WAS THE TITANIC'S SUCCESSOR --- Britannic Also Was the Largest British Vessel Afloat --- The news of the loss of the White Star liner Britannic was received at the New York Maritime Exchange at 1 o'clock yesterday and telephoned to the office of the company at 9 Broadway, but up to a late hour last night nothing had been received from the head office in Liverpool.

The Brittanic [sic] was taken at the beginning of the war as a hospital ship, and after making three trips to the Dardanelles to bring back wounded soldiers she was anchored for several months off Cowes, Isle of Wight, as a naval hospital. At Christmas the Admiralty released the vessel, and in March she was sent to Belfast to be fitted out for the passenger trade between New York and Southampton. In June, however, the vessel was taken again by the Admiralty as a hospital ship and was anchored off Cows until a few weeks ago, when she was sent to Saloniki to bring home wounded soldiers and sailors.

The Britannic was painted white, with a broad red band round her hull, and big red crosses painted on her sides, fore and aft. At night she hoisted a big cross between the first and second funnels, illuminated with red electric lights, so that there could be no mistaking her for anything but a hospital ship.

According to officials of the International Merchant [sic] Marine, the Britannic was commanded by Captain C. A. Bartlett, formerly captain of the Cedric, and she carried a crew of about 400 men, with 100 doctors and 200 nurses and attendants. Under normal conditions in the passenger trade the vessel would carry a crew of 1,000 men all told.

The Britannic was launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast Feb. 26, 1914, and was the largest British merchant vessel afloat. Her keel was laid soon after the Titanic was sunk, and she was intended to take the place of that craft. Shipping men remarked yesterday upon the fact that neither vessel ever reached America. The Britannic was to have gone into service in the Fall of 1914, but owing to the numerous strikes in the shipyard and the labor trouble, which caused delay in getting materials, it was put off to the Spring of 1915.

When the war started in August, 1914, the Britannic was taken over by the Admiralty and fitted out to accommodate about 3,500 wounded and sick. At that time her cabin fittings had not been installed, and there was very little at all on board except the engines, funnels, masts, and decks. On her first voyage the majority of the partitions on the upper decks were made of canvas, which lasted until the carpenters had time on the way out to Lemnos Bay to replace them with wooden bulkheads. She was equipped with a double bottom and fifteen watertight bulkheads carried from the keel to the bridge deck about sixty feet above the waterline, which made it improbable, engineers said yesterday, for a mine to have sunk her under ten or twelve hours, because the compartments would have kept her afloat.

She had three propellers driven by two sets of reciprocating engines on the port and starboard side, and a low-pressure turbine on the centre shaft, which combined to give her an average speed of twenty-four knots under full pressure of the twenty-nine boilers. The Britannic was 2,000 tons larger than the White Star liner Olympic, which is now carrying troops from Canada, and 3,000 tons bigger than the Cunarder Aquitania, now engaged as a hospital ship carrying wounded men from Saloniki.

The Britannic had ample lifeboat and life raft accommodation and had davits which could launch three boats, one after another, which, it was said, might have accounted for so many lives being saved.

The Britannic is the largest passenger liner that has been sunk since the war began. The two next in size were the Cunarder Lusitania, 32,000 tons, and the White Star liner Arabic, 20,000 tons, which were torpedoed.

White Star officials said yesterday that it was understood that the British Admiralty would repay the owners for the actual cost of any vessel that was destroyed or wrecked while on Government service. The cost of the Britannic would be somewhere near $7,500,000, but the loss of her passenger and freight carrying capacity after the war would be nearly treble that amount. The decorations and furnishings, carvings, silk draperies, and costly wooden panels intended for the Britannic are still at the Belfast shipyards intact ---------- MAY HAVE HAD AMERICANS --- But None Aboard the Britannic Was from the Red Cross Here --- Officials of the British Consulate said yesterday that it was possible that there were several American surgeons and nurses on the Britannic, because there was a dearth of medical men in Great Britain on account of the demand for field service.

Several doctors and nurses who went over to England with the Harvard units remained behind doing Red Cross work and many of the surgeons accepted commissions in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

The Aquitania carried three American doctors and several nurses from this country during the Dardanelles campaign. when she was a hospital ship. ---------- WASHINGTON, Nov. 22---At Red Cross Headquarters here today it was stated that there were no American surgeons or nurses serving under Red Cross direction on hospital ships in European waters. Their only workers are several units, which are ashore. They pointed out that if there were Americans aboard the Britannic they undoubtedly were volunteers who had gone aboard on their own account.